


Old Wounds

by Asynca



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Doctor/Patient, F/F, First Time, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2018-08-10 03:32:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7828849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asynca/pseuds/Asynca
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Still in Talon's grip, Amelie flies hundreds of kilometres to see Dr Ziegler in a day clinic to be treated for a wound she is desperate that Talon not find out about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The clinic was always busy this late at night; it was a downtrodden neighbourhood, everyone had hard, physical jobs and no one could afford to heat their houses properly. As a result, half the suburb was sick, especially this close to winter. The waiting room was full of sniffly-nosed children, whimpering babies and stoic, pale-faced adults who’d been trying to soldier on so they didn’t miss any hours of work.

 _I’m going to get sick after this_ , Angela thought, wishing she could just leave her mask on. It wasn’t professional, though: not smiling at the people who came to see her. Part of seeing a doctor was seeing a friendly face reassuring you that you were going to be fine; often, that was all people needed before she’d send them home to their own beds to recover.

For that reason, it was on nights like these she found herself missing Overwatch. This clinic was certainly a step down from saving the lives of hundreds of soldiers on the battlefield and researching nanotechnology that could revolutionize resuscitation the world over. But it needed to be done, these ill people needed someone to do it, and so here she was: being sneezed on by sick toddlers. Ugh.

After she’d shown the fretting mother of the sneezing toddler out, she’d ducked out of her office to the sink. “Would you mind showing my next patient in?” she called down the hallway to her receptionist while she washed her hands thoroughly. The quicker they could get through the waiting room, the quicker she could go home to her _own_ warm bed.

She’d picked up the next patient file off the heap and was opening as she walked into her room, saying, “Good evening,” as she looked up from her—

 _What_? She stopped dead in her tracks, muffling a gasp: even in casual clothes, Amélie LaCroix, or ‘Widowmaker’, she insisted on being called now, was unmistakable. Angela’s ex-close-friend, ex-colleague, now Talon assassin who’d tried more than once to kill her despite how close they used to be, was _sitting on her examination table_ , wearing civilian clothes and staring at the floor.

“ _God_!” Angela managed, lifting her hand to the door handle—had Amélie come to kill her?—and what about those poor people in the waiting room? They didn’t deserve to—

“I haven’t come to kill you, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Amélie told her in a bored, somewhat tired voice. It was clearly the truth.

Well. At least that settled Angela’s _first_ concern. She took a steadying breath. “Alright,” she said slowly, recovering from her surprise and worrying about what Amélie’s other motives might be for showing up here. “What _have_ you come for?”

Amélie looked up at her, nodding at the file in her hands. It had a false name on it. “I filled in all the forms.”

Angela wasn’t sure she should take her eyes off an assassin—perhaps it was a trick?—but the idea of ‘Widowmaker’ sitting patiently down and filling in a medical information form was so bizarre that she _did_ take a peek at it. It was actually properly filled in. She’d answered all the usual questions, and written ‘minor cut to arm’ under ‘ _please describe your ailment_ ’.

It all seemed a bit odd; she didn’t want to get her hopes up. Why would Amélie come to _her_ for treatment? Talon had some of the best doctors in the world, it was how she was reconditioned in the first place. “An _arm wound_?”

Amélie nodded, and then gestured down at her arm. Now that Angela looked at them, one of her wrists was a little fatter than the other under the long sleeves of her coat.  

“But can’t Talon look at that for you?”

“No.” She didn’t elaborate.

Angela stood there for a moment, one hand on the door knob and the other holding the patient file, wondering what she should do. It really felt very like a trap. Part of her felt like she should rush out and call for help… but the other was at least slightly curious what was going on with that arm. And after all, Amélie—the _old_ Amélie—had to be in there somewhere, under whatever Talon had done to her, didn’t she?

Angela couldn’t refuse to assist in case there was a chance of recovering the real Amélie. “Well, alright then,” she told Amélie, still a little sceptical about her motives. “Remove your coat off and let’s take a look at that arm.”

Amélie relaxed a little, slowly and gingerly easing her coat off. Her wrist heavily bandaged and, rather than spend a couple of minutes unwrapping it, Angela just cut the bandages off. Underneath was a very shoddily dressed laceration wound. It looked as if someone had wrapped a thin, sharp cord around her wrist and _whipped_ it off quickly, slicing the skin open very deeply on one side. It was healing poorly and probably infected, although it was hard to tell with Amélie’s poor skin perfusion. “This should have had stitches,” she told Amélie, not impressed. “Who looked at this for you?” She glanced up.

“No one.”

Angela’s eyebrows jumped. Oh; that explained it. She stood. “Well, it’s not going to heal well while your skin isn’t getting enough blood flow,” she explained. “So whatever Talon usually does to heal you, you’re going to need to ask them to—”

Amélie made a frustrated noise. “Didn’t you hear me? I _can’t._ That’s why I’m here.” She shifted nervously. “Believe me, _crawling_ back to Overwatch and _begging_ them to heal me is not my idea of fun, but my arm isn’t healing, and if I don’t get better soon, Talon will find out.”

 _Find out what_? Angela wondered, frowning. She didn’t ask; Amélie was already impatient enough. “Well, I suppose I can stitch up the wound if you wish, but without proper blood supply, I don’t know how you’re going to be able to clear the infection that’s—”

“Okay, stitch it up.” Amélie said, deliberately interrupting her and thrusting her cut wrist forward.

“But it won’t work without good perfusion!” Angela tried to explain. “Look, if you’d like me to refer you to a cardiologist who can—”

“No, _doctor,_ I’d like you to do your job.”

Angela prickled at that. It took a considerable effort not to snap back at her. “Well, as your doctor, I’m telling you that without blood flow, not only will that laceration not heal regardless of what I do to it, but there’s a very good chance that infection will spread and make you _very_ sick,” she said. “Look, perhaps _I_ could have a try at speeding your heart up, but I must warn you that cardiology isn’t my—”

“No!” Amélie actually sounded quite alarmed by that suggestion. She sobered quickly. “No. Please, stop this ridiculous argument. I just flew an hour to arrive here in this hell-hole for this,” she made a rough gesture with the sore arm, “I just need you to fix it. I need it to _go away_. There must be _something_ you can do to make it heal as quickly as possible!”

Angela stood back, frowning at her. She seemed panicked, almost, and all these half-truths… If it had been anyone else, she might have worried that there was someone at home that Amélie was afraid of. Angela had seen enough battered women to know what hasty, panicked requests to fix mysterious injuries usually meant. But ‘Widowmaker’ _caused_ injuries. She was an assassin; she wasn’t someone’s innocent wife trapped in a bad marriage. And yet… here she was, _yelling_ at Angela, _begging_ her to fix an injury as quickly as possible before anyone found out. It was all so odd.

Angela exhaled. Well, she could try, at least, couldn’t she? “Alright,” she said, relenting. “I’ll stitch it up for you and give you something for the infection.”

It was like relieving a pressure value; Amélie visibly relaxed. “Thank you.”

Angela got her suture kit ready; and for all Amélie was essentially her sworn enemy these days, she was a cooperative and still patient. Much more still and cooperative than she’d ever been before Talon, actually. She was so different now.

“Are you on any medications?” Angela wondered aloud while she was swabbing the wound; she’d need to think about what antibiotics to prescribe.

Amélie shrugged.

That made Angela look up. “You don’t know if you’re on any medications?”

Amélie gave her a tired look. “I don’t know what they pump me full of, and I’d hazard a guess that former _Overwatch_ agents didn’t know what _you_ were filling them with, either.”

Angela was a little insulted. “Of course they did. They signed release forms, every single one of them.”

Amélie was a little taken aback at that; clearly that wasn’t the answer she’d expected. She recovered quickly. “Just fix my arm.”

Angela held her tongue—she had to remind herself Amélie was in pain—and did exactly as instructed; a beautiful, clean row of 12 stitches across Amélie’s delicate wrist. “Don’t use that hand very much if you can avoid it,” she told her as she bandaged it up again. “Keep it as warm as possible: the warmer, the better. And I’ll need to give you a script for a broad spectrum antibiotic to take with meals for—”

“No pills. Can’t you just inject it into me?”

Angela straightened. This was getting ridiculous; she was going to find it hard to treat someone who didn’t give her all the necessary information. Or really, any information at all. And it was especially strange coming from a woman who for years had told her _everything_.

“Amélie,” she said gently, watching the woman _flinch_ as she used her old name, “can’t you please just tell me what’s going on? Perhaps I can help.”

She expertly avoided the question. “Can you inject me with whatever you need to or not?”

“Well, I can, but the injections are once a day for five days, and so you’d need to—”

“Okay,” she said firmly. “Do it. Then I will come back tomorrow night.”

Angela was poised to refuse: she shouldn’t go ahead with it. She didn’t know what medication Amélie was on. She didn’t know how well her liver and kidneys were functioning and it they could even cope with clearing the antibiotics. She opened her mouth to say it—‘No, you’ll need to get your _real_ doctors to prescribe something for you’—but then, looking at Amélie, she couldn’t.

The face in front of hers was so familiar. Blue lips and altered retinas aside, it was so familiar. Older, wearier, but still _Amélie_. The same Amélie who used to take her to all the foreign ballets every time they were in a different city and then try different local wines with her afterwards. The same Amélie who used to ask Angela to help work the knots out of her long, troublesome hair because ‘no one else is as gentle as you are’. The same Amélie she’d forced a smile for on the beautiful summers day she’d been married on. Her husband was dead, now. Killed by her, everyone said. Which meant…

 _Don’t_ , Angela told herself. _Don’t do this_.

She was already doing it. “Okay,” she said, relenting. “We can do a course of injections.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Angela was wondering when Amélie would return the following night. She’d been thinking about it all day; every time she’d popped out into the clinic waiting room to invite the next patient in, she found herself scanning the crowd, wondering if she’d spy a familiar cyanotic face amongst them.

At lunch time, she’d nearly forgotten to actually _eat_ her lunch, instead gazing blankly into it and wondering if Amélie needed a special diet now with what Talon had done to her; Amélie had _always_ loved exploring all the interesting new restaurants in whichever location Overwatch posted Gérard in.

It was impossible _not_ to wonder about Amélie’s condition and what it meant for her—not the wrist injury, however mysterious—but how Talon managed to stabilise her shock in such a way as to have it not to cause her lasting damage. It was actually a pretty impressive feat of medical technology, she decided, and she found herself wondering how they managed it, and why Amélie had been so afraid when Angela had offered to cure her.  

_They must be doing something awful to her if she’s that afraid of them_ , Angela decided, pumping air into a blood pressure cuff on her current patient’s arm while she considered it. Well, of course Talon were doing something awful; they’d kidnapped her, subjected her to god knows what to turn her against all the people who loved her. Of course she was terrified of them.

Angela only realised she’d been gazing into the nether and worrying about what Amélie must be subjected to when she released the pressure in her patient’s cuff and completely forgotten to listen for a pulse.

Whoops. She needed to focus. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly to the grizzled, red-eyed man who was frowning at her. “I didn’t quite catch that, I’m going to have to do it again.” He didn’t look impressed.  

By midnight when she’d finished with her last patient, locked all the doors and bid farewell to her faithful receptionist, Amélie still hadn’t turned up.

She cast her eyes around the waiting room one last time—maybe Amélie had been waiting for everyone to leave?—but it was completely deserted. She was the only person here. She exhaled at length, and walked reluctantly back to her room to hang up her white coat for the night.  

_I don’t know what you were expecting, Angela_ , she told herself as opened the door. _You knew as soon as Gérard was killed that she was lost to you for—_

“Good Evening, doctor.”

Angela jumped, her heart nearly bursting out of her ribcage; Amélie was waiting _in_ her room, leaning a shoulder against the wall, arms and ankles crossed. She casually pushed herself upright as Angela entered.

“Goodness!” Angela put a hand on her chest, taking a steadying breath and trying her hardest to smother a big, elated smile: _she came back_! “How did you get in?! The doors are already locked!”

Amélie scoffed. “I’m an assassin,” she said simply. She was already working off the bandage on her wrist.

She seemed fine, really, Angela observed; apart from the persistent cyanosis. And her… wrist looked like it was _actually healing_ , too. The wound had sealed; it was quite encouraging. She probed around the stitches a little for tenderness anyway, searching for signs of lingering infection. Amélie didn’t even flinch.

That was odd; she should have, it should have hurt at least a little. It made Angela wonder about her about what sort of painkillers Talon might be giving her. “Your condition,” Angela asked, gesturing at Amélie’s whole body and then swabbing the wound in preparation to redress it, “how does it feel? Is it uncomfortable?”

Amélie shrugged.

It was an odd reaction. “You don’t feel thirsty? Or anxious? Or—”

“I don’t feel at all.”

_Definitely very strong painkillers_ , Angela decided, and wondered what they were doping her up with as she bandaged the wound and gave Amélie the antibiotic shot.

Afterwards, instead of immediately disappearing like she had last night, Amélie wandered around Angela’s consultation room at a slow, leisurely pace, examining every inch of it. All the anatomy posters, the eye chart, the photo of Torbjörn and her at Halloween on her desk… everything. It made Angela nervous.

Something in particular on her desk caught Amélie’s attention. A smug grin on her pale face, she reached out and picked up a sheet of paper. “’Sixty-year-old male’,” she read, “’fever, headaches, persisting one week. Requesting advice about how he can recover quickly and return to work.’ Hah.” Her tone was mocking. “Even _I_ could tell that man to stay in bed.”

Angela swallowed. “He doesn’t get sick leave,” she felt like she needed to explain. “He was worried about how he was going to afford food if he didn’t recover soon.”

Amélie laughed once, and dropped the piece of paper back on her table. “Simply ground-breaking work you’re doing here, doctor.”

That struck Angela like a slap in the face. She’d thought the same thing many times, but coming from Amélie, it felt like an insult. “It’s ground-breaking for the people who are worried about their health, Amélie.”

Amélie looked directly at her. “All one hundred of them,” she said. “It’s a bit of a step down from the millions you could be saving it you were working in a _real_ job.”

_Oof_ , that wasn’t fair! “Well, Overwatch was defunded, Amélie,” she said a bit brusquely. “And after all that disgrace, what sort of university do you think would hire an ex—”

“Talon has a research program,” Amélie told her, “and it’s a thousand times more advanced than Overwatch’s ever was. They’re always looking for good doctors.”

W-Was that what… _No._ Angela’s stomach dropped into her feet. Was _that_ what all this was about? Not about seeing her after all…? “Are you trying to _recruit_ me?” she asked, feeling like she’d just had a knife plunged deep into her chest. “Is that what you’re here for? Are you asking me to voluntarily join the people who did _this_ to you? Someone who I—”

“No. I’m just saying you can’t possibly be happy wiping runny noses and telling sick men they’ll be fine when you could be saving millions upon millions of lives.”

Angela felt every hair on her body stand on end. “There’s joy to be found in the little things, Amélie,” she said defensively. “When someone smiles at you and thanks you for helping them with their—”

“ _Pfft_ ,” Amélie said, interrupting her. “You wouldn’t need to try so hard to search for this little joys if you were doing something you _really_ wanted to be doing.” She took a step up to Angela; Angela had forgotten she was just that little bit taller. “You are forgetting that I know you, _doctor_.”

“Not as well as you think, apparently,” she lied, feeling like she was close to saying something nasty that she’d regret. “I _am_ happy here, so you can tell Talon I’m not interested. I’m going home—you can show yourself out!”

Angela grabbed her bag and exited the building fast enough not to hear another word out of Amélie; feeling _stupid_. So, so stupid. Amélie _hadn’t_ come to see her, after all; she squeezed her eyes shut for a moment against the knife _twisting_ in her chest. Of course it was just some Talon ploy, there was nothing left there, in her. Nothing of her old friend, and _definitely_ nothing else that might have been…

And yet…

_No,_ she tried to tell herself firmly. _She’s gone, Angela. You knew that a long time ago_.

But… she _had_ seemed genuinely afraid Talon would find out about her wound…?

_Stop it_ , she begged herself. _Just stop it._

Angela’s route home passed by a supermarket—and since there was nothing in her fridge she ducked inside to grab a frozen dinner.

The store was deserted at this time of night; it was eerie walking up and down the aisles in the fluorescent lights all alone. She was just chastising herself for wondering _again_ what Amélie ate these days when she found herself passing by the alcohol section.

She paused, looking down it. Maybe…?

_Not tonight, Angela_ , she told herself, but immediately found herself thinking _, oh, please_! _Of all nights, tonight is the very night it’s okay to drink_! She debated the whole point with herself—and had just _finally_ managed to say a firm ‘no’ and was turning briskly around to go and pay for her dinner before she changed her mind, when she nearly collided with someone.

It was no surprise who it was, but she still yelped. “ _Amélie_!” She was holding something familiar, and when Angela realised what it was, it completely silenced her.  

Amélie presented her with it. “ _This_ is the label you drink, isn’t it?”

She was holding the same brand of wine Angela had bought from this supermarket last night.  

Mutely, Angela accepted it from her, feeling sick with what that meant.

“I know you want to buy it, Angela.”

God. “Stop,” she managed. “ _Please_.”

She didn’t expect Amélie to stop. She expected her to go in for the kill, to say triumphantly, ‘happy people don’t drink a whole bottle of wine on a weeknight, do they?’, to _laugh_ at her and at what she’d become. To try and maybe succeed in bringing her to tears; oh, was she capable of it. Angela knew the cruelty Amélie was capable of since Talon abducted her, she’d seen it so many times.

Which is why it absolutely floored her when Amélie didn’t do _any_ of that. She just took a step back from Angela. “Very well,” was all she said. “See you tomorrow night, doctor.”

Angela stood in place, silent, as Amélie walked casually out of the store, hips swinging.

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Angela wondered if Amélie had followed her home. She didn’t think so, but she looked upwards at rooftops as she walked anyway, checked behind her when she turned corners, and listened for sounds between her own footsteps. She heard nothing; it was the early hours of the morning in a residential neighbourhood, so of course she heard nothing. She was probably alone. She certainly _felt_ alone.

She hadn’t really noticed it before—that loneliness. On her way home, she was normally thinking about Mr So-and-so and wondering if the antibiotics had helped, or remembering an episode of a serial she’d watched the day before, or, sometimes, wondering where the rest of the old Overwatch crew were. _How_ they were, and making idle plans to visit them.

But now, as she let herself into her tired little apartment and slipped off her shoes, it really hit her how quiet and empty her place was.

_Amélie’s right about drinking this by myself_ , she thought, holding the neck of her bottle and walking barefoot into the kitchen to get a glass while she zapped her frozen dinner in the microwave. _It’s a little telling, isn’t it_?

_Then again_ , she thought as she poured herself a glass, _maybe I’m only drinking it by myself because I’m actually by myself, and it doesn’t mean anything about me being unhappy?_

She sat down at the table with her instant dinner and glass of wine, taking a mouthful of food and staring blankly out her living room window. _Was_ she unhappy?

_Not unhappy_ , _exactly_ , she decided, stirring her food absently with her fork. _Just_ …

Well, she didn’t expect to be here like this, did she? Her professors at medical school used to wax poetic about her bright future, and when she joined Overwatch, that’s how she felt: that she was going to _change the world_. That her ideas—so many ideas!—would become reality and be rolled out to the millions of people who needed them. That years down the track she would be standing on stage to a chorus of _thunderous_ applause as someone handed her Nobel Peace Prize for her breakthroughs in trauma medicine. That people would stop her on the street to tearfully thank her for saving their husband, or their daughter, or their father, with her technology. That she’d go to bed at night knowing she’d helped make the world a better place.

Instead, she was sitting here drinking alone after finishing a late shift at a drop-in clinic.

She stared down into her wine. _Alright, maybe Amélie has a point_ , she thought, and then just drank the rest of the bottle. So she was unhappy, now what? Did Amélie just expect her to turn around and say ‘Okay, I’ll join Talon’ after what Talon had done to Amélie? An organisation that Amélie herself was half-running away from for medical treatment?

It was ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous. If Amélie claimed to know Angela like she did, how could she ever believe that Angela would join an organisation that had done such things to her friend?

Angela didn’t understand, but she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She couldn’t focus on the chores she had to do around the house—she ended up putting clean clothes right back in the washing machine—and when it came to following the terrible TV serial she always watched to relax before bed, she missed most of the dialogue and then had no idea what was going on. All she could think about was why Amélie would want her to join Talon—and, well, Amélie herself. Why she was here, what she wanted from Angela.

_Some things never change_ , Angela thought to herself, sighing. A decade later, and she was _still_ unable to stop thinking about Amélie.

Turning off the TV—it was a lost cause, she couldn’t focus on it—she had a big glass of water and then wandered into her bedroom. When she went to close the blinds to change into her pyjamas, though, her hand paused on the drawing cord as she faced the window.

What if Amélie _was_ watching her right now?

_Ridiculous_ , she thought, scoffing at herself, _I must be drunk_. _As if Amélie would have any interest in spying on me all evening!_

And yet…

There was something… about that idea.

After all, she knew Amélie had spent _some_ time secretly watching her, because otherwise, how would Amélie know which wine Angela had purchased last night? Amélie _could_ very well be watching her right now, and there was something appealing about the thought of Amélie perched on a nearby rooftop, peering through a magnified rifle scope at her window.

It was even more interesting to imagine _why_ she’d do that. It couldn’t be part of Talon’s plan if Talon didn’t even know she was here, so it must be for her own private purposes. Realistically, Angela didn’t know what those purposes could be, but… well, she knew what she _hoped_ they were.

If Amélie had been watching her for this long, what did she hope to see…?

Angelia was still quite tipsy; if she hadn’t have been, she probably would have talked herself out of all of this nonsense, closed the blind, and gone to bed. But she _was_ tipsy, and so she didn’t talk herself out of it.

Instead, she left the blind up and slowly unbuttoned her work shirt.

It was ridiculous. She was being ridiculous. It was far more likely her grizzled neighbours would see her than Amélie would, and yet… here she was, slowly shrugging off her shirt in front of an open window.

Underneath, she had a rather nice bra on—pale blue and, ironically, French lace. If Amélie was watching, Angela wondered what she thought of it. Amélie had always liked pretty underwear, too; they used to go to high-end retailers in Paris together and fawn over the designer sets. Amélie had never seen her in one, though.

Well, if she was watching, she had now.

After Angela had stood like that for a moment, she took a little breath and reached around her back to undo the clasp, pausing a moment before she finally let the lace fall down her arms.

She was standing here, in front of the window, topless. Amélie had never seen this, either. Angela had no idea if there was any chance she was watching now, but _god_ it felt good to imagine she was. To imagine she liked what she saw and that she’d go home and think about it.

Thinking of Amélie watching her, thinking of Amélie’s eyes on her skin, it was electrifying. It woke something in her that she’d long since put to sleep—a hunger in her that she’d sensibly abandoned in a city full of people she didn’t know or trust.

She pulled out her ponytail, too, and let her blonde hair fall over her pale shoulders, looking down her front and imagining Amélie drinking it all in.

She felt 25 again. Like she’d just been introduced to this _beautiful_ and enigmatic French girl with legs that went for eternity. God, it felt so good.  

She could hardly bear to put her pyjamas on, but in the end, she couldn’t just stand in front of her window half-naked all night. She was tired, a little drunk, and probably upsetting her neighbours. So, she reluctantly dressed, tucked herself in bed and resolved to try and sleep.  

If Amélie _had_ been watching, she wondered what her appointment at the clinic was going to be like tomorrow night.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know we all like the idea of Mercy as a top. BUT. What if she wasn't a top?

Angela’s shift couldn’t start soon enough.

She’d hardly slept, she had a dull, throbbing headache from all her wine, but she found herself wide awake and feeling fresh and energised in the shower, high on the exhilaration she’d felt in throwing caution to the wind and standing topless in front of her open window last night.

_Had_ Amélie been watching her from the rooftops last night? Would Angela ever even find out if she had? As ridiculous as it was, Angela couldn’t help imagining that Amélie _had_ been spying on her, and that instead of simply presenting her arm to be jabbed and dressed tonight, she would throw Angela against the wall of her consultation room, step in against her and tear her shirt off, popping her buttons all over the floor before they embraced.

When it came time to get dressed for work, she even fussed over which white shirt she should wear—well, just in case the buttons of it _would_ end up being popped.

Before she ironed the one she’d chosen, however, she was reaching into her underwear drawer to grab a fresh bra, and her fingers brushed something a little different: her _special_ bra. It had been an impulse buy a couple of years back, a beautiful matching set that she’d purchased for ‘special’ occasions. Two years later, she’d never worn it.

She took it out and spent a couple of seconds stroking the soft red lace and thinking.

A smile pulled at her lips. Why not? Consulting wasn’t exactly a _special_ occasion, but…

She fastened it behind her back, grinning like a fool. Perhaps the bright colour would show a little through her shirt? Her regular patients wouldn’t see it, of course, because she wore a doctor’s coat while she was attending. But maybe… she could casually take off her coat before Amélie arrived? If Amélie _had_ been watching last night, maybe seeing the red lace would invite her to return tonight.

While she was imagining how that might play out, she buttoned her blouse up in the wrong holes and had to undo it all again.

There was something to be said for special underwear, Angela decided as she finished getting dressed and made her way to work as dusk approached; something deliciously naughty about having a secret on underneath her professional white coat.

In between patients, her office looked different than usual: the exam table looked like something she could be hoisted up upon, her desk looked like furniture she could be pushed up against. Her door had a lock—she’d never used it before, because she’d never had reason to. She privately entertained herself thinking about possible reasons now, shrugging off her coat and hanging it up after she’d bid the last official patient farewell.

Sitting down at her chair to wait, she imagined watching blue-tipped fingers turning the lock. _Amélie_ , she thought, silently mouthing the name to herself and feeling it roll over her lips. _Amélie._ Someone she _shouldn’t_ want. Someone she’d never really been allowed to want. And yet, here she was: undressing in front of open windows at night, hoping Amélie was watching her. Wearing her special underwear to work, imagining being backed up against her desk and feeling that hard, tight body against hers. Hip to hip, mouths pressed together while their hands scrambled with each other’s—

“ _Bonsoir_.” Breath tickled Angela’s ear, and she would have shivered if she hadn’t _jumped_.

Angela blurted out a greeting automatically, leaping out of her chair to stand. She could feel a deep blush growing on her cheeks, and she desperately hoped it wouldn’t give away what she was thinking.

Amélie didn’t appear to have guessed—at least, she looked no more smug than usual. “Once upon a time you wouldn’t have let anyone sneak up on you like that,” she commented. “But I suppose with the terrible hangover you must have, I can’t really blame you.”

Angela’s breath caught a little. Had she been watching, after all? “W-What makes you so sure I drank the entire bottle?”

Amélie scoffed. “Pfft, _please_ ,” she said easily, “you and I both know you did.” She didn’t elaborate.

Angela wanted to ask her to, to confirm she’d seen everything, but she daren’t. Angela couldn’t read her expression, but she didn’t _think_ Amélie looked at all liable to throw her up against the desk—which perhaps meant she _hadn’t_ seen Angela topless...? Surely, though, if she’d seen all that and she wasn’t interested then she’d at least tease Angela about having undressed for her greasy neighbours, wouldn’t she? Then again, Angela supposed, now that she was ‘Widowmaker’, who knew what she was—

“Ahem.” Angela only realised she’d been staring when Amélie cleared her throat and rolled up her sleeve. _Now_ she looked smug. It didn’t help with Angela’s blush.

Trying not to make eye-contact, Angela put on a pair of sterile gloves and removed the bandages from Amélie’s arm.

Concerningly, the whole area was swollen again, and, despite her poor perfusion, her wound had that angry look of inflamed tissue just as it had when Amélie had first shown up.

Angela made a noise. “The infection’s back.”

“Of course it is.”

Forgetting to be embarrassed, Angela raised her eyebrows, glancing up. “’Of course’?”

Amélie shrugged. “You ran off to the supermarket before you could give me the injection yesterday.”

Angela’s jaw dropped. For a moment, she tried to recall the events of last evening—aside from drunkenly undressing in front of her open window—and sure enough, she realised she _had_ taken off prior to giving Amélie the antibiotics. Heavens, what sort of doctor was she?! “Why didn’t you tell me?!”

“I am telling you.”

“I mean when you,” ambushed? “—met me in the supermarket!”

Her smirk… “Well, I was already cutting into your quality drinking alone time.”

Angela was too horrified at herself to even shoot Amélie a dirty look for that one. She was still reeling from both her rookie mistake and also how silly running away from Amélie must have made her look. Damn it: and the infection had been clearing up so well! She prodded at the swollen and inflamed edges again. They did _not_ look good, which really left them both with no choice. “I’m going to have to start the full five-day course again.” She straightened for a moment, shaking her head at herself. “I’m so sorry, Amélie.”

“I’m not.”

Angela glanced up; Amélie was looking right at her. Her heart fluttered.

Amélie stared across at her for a moment, unreadable. Finally, the corners of her lips turned ever so slightly. “I’m not,” she repeated, “because it gives me more time to show you that you’re wasting your talents wiping snivelling noses.” She leant forward. Even over the harsh disinfectant, Angela could smell chocolate on her breath. “Come on, Doctor,” she said, “we’ve already established you hate it here, ‘small joys’ or whatever nonsense reason you gave aside. Leave this pathetic job to some balding middle-aged divorcee and come back with me.”

She was _looking_ at Angela, and Angela didn’t know how to feel. She wanted so much to savour this moment, to savour how Amélie was looking at her and to imagine it was the beginning of one of her fantasies, but—logic won out. Unfortunately. “After what Talon’s doctors did to you?”

“Maybe if you’d been my doctor, I wouldn’t have turned out like this.”

Angela made a noise. If she’d been Amélie’s doctor, Amélie would be at home right now, sleeping peacefully beside the husband she loved. Any doctor that did to anyone what had been done to Amélie deserved to be stripped of their licence, assets, and jailed for life.

Amélie was watching her. “Come back with me,” she repeated, more quietly. Again, Angela smelt chocolate. She suspected it was deliberate.

And, well, of _course_ it was deliberate, all of this was deliberate.  And as much as she really, truly wanted to see how far Amélie would go with this—God, she really, really did—Angela wasn’t born yesterday. Amélie was, for whatever reason, just trying to tempt her to join Talon.

It hurt a little, admitting that to herself. It hurt even more saying what she knew she needed to say. “Amélie, if that’s all you’re here for, you should leave.”

Amélie didn’t move at all. “Looks like I’m finishing my new course of antibiotics, then,” she said neutrally, rolling up her sleeve to the shoulder as Angela went to give her the needle.

Angela almost stabbed her in the wrong place with it. She hadn’t been prepared for how quickly that little ache in her chest would turn to butterflies in her stomach.

Angela was still arguing with herself about Amélie’s motives as she finished up treating her, and stepped away to strip off her gloves and throw them in the biohazard bin. She’d been washing her hands for nearly a minute while she waited for Amélie to leave when she realised Amélie _wasn’t_ going to leave. She was just standing there, behind Angela. Closer than she probably should be.

Angela turned the tap off, dried her hands and stood facing the sink for a moment, staring down at it.

A silence stretched between them, and Angela held her breath for all of it.

“Turn around, Doctor.”

Angela was terrified to. She did anyway, turning slowly on her hip against the sink.

To Angela’s horror, Amélie took a single step right in close to her. In her panic, Angela backed awkwardly up against the sink and had her clutching feebly at the countertop.

Amélie’s face was right there—her high cheekbones and long eyelashes, her sharp jaw and heart-shaped hairline—and her lips. Her beautiful lips. While Angela was watching, she wet them with her tongue.

Angela couldn’t breathe, or move, or speak, and she certainly could stop her or push her away. Her knees felt weak in both joy and panic as Amélie leant slowly forward towards her.

_It’s happening,_ Angela’s brain screamed, _it’s happening_!

As Amélie’s face approached, Angela’s eyes fell helplessly shut.

Amélie’s beautiful bee-stung lips touched…. one of Angela’s cheeks, and then the other, and then the other in a platonic gesture.

“Good night,” Amélie said, as if she was waving off a co-worker. There was a smile in her voice as Angela’s eyes fluttered open, and she made very, very sure Angela was looking at her as she said, “By the way, you have excellent taste in lingerie as always.”

Angela couldn’t tell if she was referring to the faint red strap visible through her pressed while blouse… or when Angela had undressed last night in front of her open window, and there was no way for Angela to ask. She couldn’t speak.

Amélie didn’t clarify, either. “Looks like we’re both going home alone after all,” she commented neutrally.

Still up against the sink in an awkward, panicked position, Angela listened to her elegant heels clicking on the linoleum as she let herself out however she’d managed to get in.  

 


End file.
